Monday, January 31, 2011

When we built this house in 2006, I treated myself to a couple of sessions

with a "color advisor." With large expanses of wall areas and high ceilings, mistakes were not going to be made. It was important to get it right the first time around.

The BEST money I ever spent. The first visit was on a dark cloudy day to the yet unfinished house with bare raw plaster walls. The second visit was on a sunny day. Initial colors were chosen, color boards were prepared, a couple colors were eliminated, and final choices were made. An excellent 3 hours of time to choose one of the most important elements in the overall feeling in a home.

Second guessing decisions is a part of making so many critical choices over a few months time, as a home goes from design to final result. So it was that our painting contractor tried to talk us into "color matching" the brand of paint he preferred to the colors personally chosen by my color advisor.

Walls were painted with splashes of color from the chosen colors and

then side by side with the "matched" colors. Not even close to the softness, warmth, "alive" feel of the real thing. So the final decision was to go for the expert's choices and it was the best decision I ever made. That being said, it is impossible to capture the way the colors of these rooms change with the seasons and with the light on any given day. They truly do reflect the "mood" of the day.

Kitchen Colors

Benjamin Moore

199 Barley

2144-40 Soft Fern

492 Dune Grass

A tip here from my advisor:

We dealt with only color #'s assigned by the maker, not the color names which can sway you just because of the emotional pull of one name over another.

The exhaust hood bump-out over the range is 492.

The right hand wall and ceiling in these images is 199, which

is the main color used for many of the rooms in the house.

The back and left hand walls are 2144-40.

The light playing on the back wall changes the whole look of the color.

My limitations as a photographer make it hard to convey the true beauty of these colors, but let me assure you that I wouldn't change a thing after four years.

15 comments:

I love your kitchen. We are going to redo the floors in our kitchen in the next couple of years. Please tell me what your floors are. They are beautiful. I love the wide plank look. And the stain too. Absolutely what I am looking for. Thanks. Charlotte

The pine flooring came as raw wood from Carlisle and was stained and sealed in our choice of colors. It runs throughout the house, no carpet, no vinyl, just all pine flooring. It helps make all the rooms "seem" larger and flow together with no break for a seamless look. Look at the pictures closely and see that the flooring helps to make the room seem larger than it actually is.

The individual boards run up to 16'long by 8-13" wide and were cured for several weeks in the house to acclimate to the humidity/temperature levels. They were all stacked with spacers between the boards to facilitate air flow.

To read more about the company we dealt with go to www.wideplankflooring.com

The house was sealed from all other trades for three weeks while the flooring was installed, stained and the finish applied.

I am so glad you posted your paint information and how you selected everything. I too have 492 dune grass in my house. It is painted in my foyer and hallway. I have it paired with Benjamin Moore's 851 Tint of Mint for the ceiling. During the day the ceiling appears white but at night-such a fun change as the green comes through.

I have made a lot of paint "goofs" in my life and have sinse used paint boards.

Thank you Mary and Sara, I'm so pleased you enjoyed your visit to my kitchen!

Paint is HARD. Way too many choices and I have made so many bad choices in the past, that this time around I was determined to get it right.

Case in point was my laundry room a few houses ago. I picked the most wonderful rich beige (on paper) color to go with a tiny beige plaid wallpaper and a "tunnel" skylight. This was back in the early 80s. What I ended up with was a very very PINK glow ..... just awful, but quickly repainted before we moved in and the wallpaper was up.